Congratulations to Emrys Shoemaker, who has received an SNSF grant for his new research project, "Digital Transformation Government: Strengthening Or Disintermediating Democracy And Local Governance: A Citizen-State Relationship Analysis". Hosted by the Global Governance Centre, the project explores how the digital transformation of public services reshapes the citizen–state relationship and challenges prevailing explanations of trust in government.
More About the project
The project "Digital Transformation Government: Strengthening Or Disintermediating Democracy And Local Governance: A Citizen-State Relationship Analysis" examines how the digital transformation of public services, particularly through an increasingly common approach termed ‘digital public infrastructure’, reshapes the citizen–state relationship and challenges prevailing explanations of trust in government. By focusing on digital ID and payment systems, this study investigates the transformation of the citizen-state relationship, testing whether digital transformation fosters trust through efficiency gains or whether it instead erodes trust by eliminating personal bureaucratic interactions.
Click here to find out more about the project.
About Emrys Shoemaker
Emrys Shoemaker is a Senior Research fellow at the Global Governance Centre, where he leads the Robert Bosch Foundation funded ‘Digital Sovereignty Observatory’ and the Swiss National Science Foundation funded project 'Digital Transformation of Government: Strengthening or Disintermediating Democracy?’. He holds a PhD in International Development from the London School of Economics, and has held visiting positions at Cornell Tech, the London School of Economics and the Graduate Institute. His work as been supported by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Centre and the Swiss National Foundation. Emrys also leads Caribou’s Policy and Advisory Practice, in which capacity he conducts research and advises governments, multilateral organisations (United Nations, World Bank), philanthropic foundations and industry on issues around digital transformation, digital infrastructure and the implications for politics, the economy and society.
Emrys’s scholarly interests focus on digital transformation and the implications for organisations, politics and processes of international development and humanitarian response. He is particularly interested in issues of governance, particularly as they related to digital infrastructure, data and emerging technologies such as AI.
His research has been published in academic journals such as Data & Policy, Big Data and Society, Information Systems Journal, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Information Technology and Development and International Journal of Communication, as well as media outlets including the Guardian, Tech Policy Press and Global Policy